PLANS TO MONITOR NOISE OF CHILDREN

Published:11:02Thursday 16 February 2012

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A COUNCILLOR labelled Broxtowe Borough Council a ‘basket case’ amid threats over noise levels at a local games area and a nearby school.

Cllr Philip Owen said the council’s suggestions to install a £60,000 acoustic curtain at Newthorpe’s Multi Use Games Area, and its threat to monitor noise levels at Greasley Beauvale Primary School school during playtime, were ‘absurd’.

Greasley Parish Council has been in talks with Broxtowe Borough Council over noise levels at the Dovecote Road games area for months on end because of complaints from residents living nearby, and has now suggested the use of an acoustic curtain to absorb the sound.

However, complaints have now also been received about the school around the corner, and the borough council is considering monitoring sound levels there as well.

Cllr Owen said: “The council has become a basket case. How absurd to expect that children will not make a noise.

“When have you ever been to a school where children do not make a noise at playtime?

“There’s even been complaints about lights going on in the school building when it’s dark. Security staff were going round with torches. It really has got beyond belief.”

Cllr Owen said at a Greasley Parish Council meeting this week the borough council was ‘in the process of preparing legal documents’ over the ongoing saga with the games area.

“They (the borough council) have come up with one or two suggestions,” he added.

“An acoustic curtain is one, at a cost of around £60,000. And when I asked if that would be the end of it, I was told ‘not necessarily’.

“It’s an awful lot to spend when it might not make a difference.”

Cllr Owen suggested the parish council monitor the noise levels at other games areas across the county, claiming Broxtowe Borough Council was over-reacting.

“It seems to me that Broxtowe Borough Council is acting disproportionately,” he claimed.

“There’s a noise issue in Watnall and they don’t do anything about it.

“It will be public money that will be wasted if they carry on the way they are.

“This council (parish council) has the full support of the leader and the cabinet at Nottinghamshire County Council. They are just as disgusted as we are.”

Greasley Parish Council has taken several steps to reduce the noise at the games area, such as installing special fencing to absorb the sound of the footballs hitting against them, but residents have continued to complain.

Cllr Mick Brown said: “It just stuns me that there is a small group of people in this lovely parish, that’s a great place to live, willing to cause all this upset.”

Broxtowe Borough Council did not want to comment because noise levels in both cases, at the games area and the school, were under investigation.

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